


Martian Mischief

by dogmatix



Category: Murdoch Mysteries, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Because when is he not?, GFY, Gen, Murdoch pining after Dr. Ogden, Other, and the SG1 crew do not show up at all, but the jedi are still goa'uld, implied/background Anakin/Padme/Fives, this is AU to Star to Steer By
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6539020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Anakin, their hosts, and various clones end up in Toronto, Canada, in the late 1800's.  That goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU to Star to Steer By, my and norcumi's Star Wars/Stargate SG1 fic.
> 
> Pertinent things to know: The Jedi are snake-like alien symbiotes, who generally run around keeping the peace and righting wrongs. They host (with permission) in various Republic species, from Humans to Wookies to Rodians. Currently there is war in the Galactic Republic, and the Jedi are on the side opposite the Separatists. The Republic army is composed to a large extent of Clones (of Jango Fett), and Clones are also the bulk of the Jedi's hosts. 
> 
> Toronto in the late 1800's = Victorian Era, which means trains and telephones are still new and shiny technology, theories about life on other planets is mostly concerned with Mars(and the canals seen on its surface) and Venus, and racism and sexism abound.
> 
> (this is supposed to be a short little fun ficlet thing. Hopefully I can, er, keep it to that?)

“ _Kriffing_ hutt’s _asshole_!” Anakin swore feelingly as he punched the panel, which sparked and beeped at him. Fives’s frustration echoed his.

“Are we infected?” Obi-Wan asked, voice tight.

Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan, 17, Ahsoka, and Echo. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Ahsoka said, shoulders drawing in. “I wasn’t fast enough-“

“You blocked it from infecting the entire GAR. Now stop fishing for compliments,” 17 scowled.

“He’s right, we completed our objective,” Obi-Wan added.

“We just might not make it back home,” Ahsoka reminded them morosely.

A virus that could corrupt a navicomp’s calculations was one of the most dangerous threats the GAR had faced during the Separatist Conflict. If the navicomps could not be trusted, ships, troops, and supplies could not be moved. The entire army would grind to a halt.  First seen during the Stark Hyperspace War, the navicomp virus had been eradicated then, but the Jedi had caught wind of some enterprising Separatist group trying to resurrect it.

The 212th, along with Anakin and Ahsoka, had been sent to deal with the threat before the virus could be launched.  So Obi-Wan was correct, the mission had indeed been a success. The completed virus and most of the slicers involved in its re-creation were so much space-dust. However, the virus had been locally transmitted as a last-ditch measure by the Separatist group. Incomplete, it would not spread itself, but the cruiser that they were on was, indeed, infected.

It was a small cruiser, barely holding a third of the 212th, as well as eight Z-95 starfighters and a handful of gunships. And it was in trouble. Damaged during the fight, they’d jumped to hyper to avoid droid reinforcements.  The good news was that they’d succeeded. The bad news was that they had no idea where in the galaxy they’d pop out of hyper. The worse news was that the cruiser was in bad enough shape that they’d be lucky if they got out of hyper in one piece, and never mind where.

 

* * *

  
  
“I’m telling you, Sir, it’s,” Constable Crabtree glanced around and lowered his voice, “it’s Martians.”

Detective William Murdoch gave Crabtree an admonishing glance.  Around them, the lazy crowds moved in the typical Toronto bustle.  The earnest-faced young constable soldiered on.

“Or Venusians.  It could be Venusians. If you take into account the sullied atmosphere of Venus, and how they burned the trees here-“

“George,” Murdoch fortstalled the other man. “We’ve run into ‘Martians’ before.  It wasn’t Martians then, and it’s not Martians now.”

“You think it could be Myers again?” Crabtree asked, disappointed.

“I think that’s much more likely than Martians. Or Venusians,” Murdoch said firmly.

True, the site of the….whatever it was, was odd, but then the scene of Mr. Gaston’s death had been odd as well.  All the eye-witnesses to the current event – and they were legion – agreed that the streak of fire moving through the sky had been some kind of extraordinarily large comet, and had shot along at the kind of speed one would expect from a falling star.

That ruled out the motorized dirigible Murdoch had encountered before.  However, the square imprints he’d found stamped into the ground  in the clearing, spoke of something man-made.  It would be the height of irony if Myers’ dirigible had been struck down by an actual meteor, and the idea entertained Murdoch.  Heavenly retribution, indeed.

The dirigible couldn’t have been too damaged, however, since there had been no trace of it. Therefore, it must have been able to lift off again and limp home.

There were some puzzling aspects though. If it had indeed been a dirigible, then the scope of the damage to the trees would seem to indicate that it was much larger and much heavier than the one Murdoch had seen the first time.  Also, if the metal had been heated enough to set trees afire with a mere touch, how had the dirigible itself survived?

In all, it had been an interesting three day round trip, but with nobody dead and nothing damaged except some trees, there really was no call for a police presence.  Murdoch would be able to turn in his report that nothing untoward had happened, it would go up the chain and percolate into the newspapers, and the alarmed populace would calm back down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: racial slurs (not intended as such in-context, but they’re still there)

“Murdoch!”

Not ten seconds through the police station’s door. Back to business as usual, then. Murdoch pressed his lips together in his typical rallying smile. “Inspector, what can I-?”

“Get in here, take a crack at ‘im.”

“Him who, sir?”

Inspector Brackenreid shot him a look like Murdoch was being deliberately obtuse and wasting Brackenreid’s valuable time. Also business as usual. “A suspect, of course.”

“I don’t suppose we have a name?”

“Not bloody likely - bastard doesn’t speak a word of English.”

Murdoch fell into step with Brackenreid. “And the evidence against him?”

“’E was dragged off a woman, blood all over him. She’d been stabbed to death.”

“And our suspect was holding the knife?”

“No, but it don’t make much difference.”

Given Brackenreid’s typical forthright nature when it came to arresting murderers, something was odd. “Then if you are convinced he’s your man, why are you trying to get a confession out of him, instead of relying on physical evidence? Especially if he speaks no English.”

“Not a confession, Murdoch. ‘Is brother was seen fleein’ the scene of the crime. We need to find the brother. Probably where the knife went, too.”

“I see.” Murdoch nodded.

It wasn’t going to be easy, Murdoch knew the instant he entered the room.  The suspect sat, stone-faced, and gave Murdoch an assessing look.  The alert posture screamed military to Murdoch, or at least indicated some form of training.

The man wasn’t quite a Negro or a Mulatto, nor did he appear to be an Indian, but his dark skin indicated a foreign origin. There were scars on his face – notable but not disfiguring – as well as an intricate black tattoo that started on one cheek and flowed back and down until it disappeared under the neck of the man’s shirt. Perhaps some form of tribal marks?

The suspect also seemed entirely unbothered by the dried blood on his hands, arms, and chest. Brackenreid hadn’t been exaggerating, then. Part of Murdoch was dismayed that they hadn’t even allowed the man the opportunity to wash the blood off. The rest of him was puzzling at the man’s clothing. Solid black, it covered him from neck to wrists, but it appeared to have no buttons, closures, or ties, as if it had been sewn onto the man.

Murdoch sat down opposite the suspect. “Hello,” he enunciated clearly. “My name is Detective Murdoch.” He put his hand to his chest. “Murdoch.” He held out his hand in the suspect’s direction. “And you?”

The man’s unresponsive glare wasn’t actually a surprise. The black eye – probably acquired after being brought into the station – was darkening nicely, and Murdoch sighed. This was going to be a long evening.

 

* * *

  
Quick continued to remain unresponsive to the city-guard’s questions. He was almost tempted to try establishing rudimentary communications with this one, who had yet to scream at him or hit him, but he doubted rescue was far off, and to hell with this backward mudhole and the di’kuts who’d dragged him away from a dying kid.

Kenobi, 17, Quick, Waxer, and Boil had been sent to see if there might be any useable tech, while the other Jedi and troops had stayed behind to fix the hyperdrive (Skywalker), get the cruiser spaceworthy again (Tano and some engineers), or make sure nobody stumbled over the ship (everyone else).

Saying that the tech on offer had been a disappointment was an understatement. What technology these people had was barely up to electrical impulses along wires, and strangers were met with hostility and suspicion.

It was surprising how easy it was to get lost in the warren of narrow, twisty streets, too.  Quick had known when he’d stumbled across the fight that he should turn tail and run, but the dying kid had taken priority. She looked all of eighteen, if that, and the stab-wound must have found an artery. He’d still been trying to staunch the bleeding when the city guard had dragged him away from her.

The city-guard slumped a bit, looking tired.

Much as he didn’t want to, Quick felt a flare of sympathy. The guy was only trying to do his job. Without violence, even.

“Quick.”

The city-guard looked up. Quick rolled his eyes. “Quick,” he repeated, tapping his sternum. Then he pointed at the city-guard. “Muurdok.”

Well that perked the guy right back up again. Quick shook his head at the new flood of words.  “Hold up, I have no idea what you’re saying, and babbling at me won’t help.”  He was no slouch, but he couldn’t learn a new language at the drop of a helmet – a Jedi, he wasn’t.

An hour later, Quick was regretting his decision to engage. He stared down at the map in front of him, utterly lost.  “Sorry, you’d need a bigger map,” he said, looking up at Muurdok and the red-haired city-guard, who was standing and Muurdok’s shoulder and scowling like he wanted to dig the answers out of Quick with a spork. Quick shrugged. He only had a vague idea which sector of the galaxy they were in; a map of a single planet was worse than useless.

 

* * *

  
“It doesn’t appear he can pinpoint his place of origin,” Murdoch said, his enthusiasm deflating. He’d been so hopeful that this might yield some answers.

“I told you this was a stupid idea,” Brackenreid groused. “Foreign bastard’s probably never seen a map before. ‘E probably can’t even read.”

“Well, yes, I would say that’s very likely, given that he can’t speak English or French. Although it is possible he can write in his own language-“

“I don’t care if ‘e can recite Shakespeare, I just want some bleeding answers!”

Murdoch pursed his lips together. The suspect wasn’t being deliberately obstreperous, Murdoch was sure. Strong-arm tactics would likely only make the man retreat back into himself again. “Sir-“

“Inspector!”

“ _What_ , Crabtree?” Brackenreid snapped.

“The other suspect just walked into the station!”


	3. Chapter 3

Murdoch could see how Crabtree had recognized the new arrival as the second suspect. Though dressed slightly differently, albeit still strangely, the man was the identical twin of the one seated in the interrogation room.

As if aware of the scrutiny he was under, the dark-skinned man looked away from the wide-eyed constable talking to him, and stared directly at their little group.

“Well, what are you waitin’ for, Christmas?  Arrest him!” Brackenreid barked, scowling at Crabtree.

“Sir,” Murdoch interrupted, addressing Brackenreid even as he put a hand on Crabtree’s arm to forestall the constable. “A moment.”

“You’re about to tell me not to arrest ‘im, aren’t you?” Brackenreid glared at Murdoch.

“He seems calm, and he might be more co-operative if he’s not under arrest,” Murdoch spoke quietly, though he doubted that the second suspect could hear them, or would understand them even if he could.  “We can always arrest him later,” Murdoch pointed out.

“Fine,” Brackenreid allowed, still annoyed. “But I want some results from this. Find that bloody knife.”

“Yes, sir,” Murdoch tipped his head a fraction in acknowledgement, then turned to face their new arrival.  It was clear the man wore the same black undershirt as his brother, the neck of it being visible, but over it he wore at least two layers of tan-coloured clothing. Not anything like a normal shirt or jacket, this seemed almost Oriental. The topmost layer resembled a waistcoat, only it fell much lower, and overlapped in the front. The under-layer had long, loose sleeves that showed the cuffs of the black shirt only in glimpses. A wide belt held it all shut, and brown pants and boots completed the ensemble.  In all, the effect was foreign but formal.

Murdoch cleared his throat and walked forward. “Hello. My name is Detective Murdoch.”

“Find my brother, I am?”

Murdoch took a second to work through the broken but intelligible English. There was a mild accent, but not a Cantonese one, nor anything else Murdoch recognized. It matched the accent of the first suspect. “Yes, your brother is here.  We would like to speak to you first. Then you can see your brother.”

The man frowned, likely puzzling through Murdoch’s words. Finally, he nodded. “Yes.”

“Come this way, please?” Murdoch turned his body, gesturing back to an empty room.

 

* * *

 

‘ _Quick is close, I can sense him_ ,’ Ahsoka said, sounding half-distracted, the way Jedi usually did when they were tapping strongly into the Force.

_‘I thought you needed a strong connection to trace someone like that?_ ’ Echo asked.

‘ _He’s less than five meters from us – proximity helps. He’s also the only clone here other than you. I couldn’t tell you who he is if I didn’t already know, but I can tell he’s a GAR trooper._ ’

Well, that made sense. Echo followed the city-guard into a bare, windowless room.  Interrogation room, or Echo would eat his vambrace.  He was glad they’d found the missing medic, though he was all too aware that they might have limited time, and the language barrier wasn’t helping.  He and Ahsoka had more of the local language than Waxer and Boil, but less than Kenobi and 17.  Unfortunately, Kenobi and 17 were on their way back to the now-spaceworthy cruiser. Skywalker had had a premonition, also known as a bad feeling, about their pursuit, and everyone was being recalled as quickly as possible.

Ahsoka’s frustration at having to play nice with the natives wasn’t helping Echo’s own urge to go the short, easy route.  They’d at least _try_ talking first, he reminded himself.  The formal Jedi getup was helping. Probably. Even if these people had never seen a Jedi before, and it was pretty obvious they hadn’t.

Echo’s ass had just barely kissed the cool wood of the chair when his com beeped.  Given that they were supposed to be keeping a low profile with the natives, Echo had a good guess as to what had happened. Switching from ‘make nice with the natives’ to ‘on duty Second,’ he shoved the flowing sleeve up to his elbow, revealing his vambrace. “Echo here,” he said.

“Sir, the Seppies just dropped out of hyper! We’re tracking your location, ETA fifteen seconds! Get Quick if you can, and get outside if you’re not already!”

“On it!” Ahsoka said, already up and using the Force to nudge the slack-jawed human out of the way. “Here we _go_ ,” she grunted as she rebounded off a wall, homing in on the medic’s Force-signature and twisting past another human holding a short black club.

A Force-shove took the flimsy wooden door off its hinges, and from there it was the work of moments to get both herself and Quick out of the building.

 

* * *

 

It all happened so quickly. Murdoch stood frozen in shock for two whole seconds before he turned to chase after the dark-skinned man. Even if that had been a girl’s voice.

Moved. Murdoch been moved by…nothing. It hadn’t been a shove, nor a gust of wind.  He forcibly put if from his mind for the moment.  He’d taken a bare three steps after the man when both suspects met him going the other way.  Murdoch had enough presence of mind to try and tackle one, but the suspect ducked and spun, seemed to flow like water around Murdoch, who was left grabbing empty air.

Even so, Murdoch had been relatively fast to recover.  Everyone had been caught flatfooted.  Inspector Brackenreid was yelling, trying to snap the station back into action.  Crabtree tried to swing his nightstick at the first suspect, but was lifted up and back perhaps two feet, again with no visible cause.

Murdoch lurched forward, pushing himself to run after the two men. He shot out of the station’s doors a bare moment behind them, but when he got outside-

It did look a bit like the dirigible, except that it lacked a balloon to contain the gasses which would supply the lift.  Nevertheless, it moved smoothly, precisely. Night had fallen outside, but the airship was lit from within, showing several-   For a second Murdoch’s mind refused to supply him with anything except ‘knights.’

They wore white armour, including helmets, and one was leaning out of the airship as it touched down, stretching out a hand to one of the running men.

Murdoch, who had kept sprinting forward in spite of his shock, had less than a split second do decide on his course of action, and thus it was almost as much a surprise to himself as to the armoured figures when he launched himself into their craft, cracking his shins heavily on the already rising deck.

He looked up in wordless shock and confusion at the white-armoured figures and the two suspects.

“Sir! Help!”

Crabtree, bless his tenacious soul, had followed Murdoch, and now clung to the edge of the airship’s deck by only his arms.

“Sir!”

Two of the white-armoured figures got there first. Muffled words in the cadence of the first suspect’s mother tongue echoed from the helmets as Crabtree was efficiently hauled into the still-rising dirigible.


	4. Chapter 4

Murdoch was in well over his head, and he knew it.  His stomach was a cold, hard knot, and it was just as well he wasn’t being made to stand – he didn’t think he could manage it at the moment, quite honestly.  The doors of the balloon-less airship had slid shut after the armoured men had hoisted Crabtree in.  They had already been well above the rooftops of Toronto.  Murdoch didn’t want to think about how high they might be now.

Closing the doors had cut the wind but also isolated the entire group in a small metal room. There were long vertical windows in the walls, but with the lights on inside the airship, the windows showed only the blackness of night.

The second suspect was talking to his arm. And his arm was answering back. Laughter clawed at the back of Murdoch’s throat.

No. Something in Murdoch rebelled. There had to be a scientific principle at play here. There _had_ to be.  He knew communication over long distances was possible – witness the telegraph and telephone. He himself had seen an instance of wireless transmission, once.  This was some sort of advancement on that. How an airship could fly without a balloon, he did not know, but there _was_ an explanation, he merely had to find it.

Crabtree slammed a hand over his mouth and bent forward with a loud ‘hurrrk’ sound. Murdoch couldn’t think of anything to do, and vomit seemed like such an insignificant problem, that he found himself merely watching as Crabtree scrabbled at his constable helmet, managing to get it off and vomit into it, rather than all over his clothing and the floor of the airship.

 

* * *

  
“Interesting pair,” Boil muttered, but Ahsoka was far too busy coordinating with Anakin and Obi-Wan to pay attention to their tag-alongs.  Anakin had gotten the hyperdrive functional, though the virus was still embedded in the navicomp.  Given the level of local weapons technology, the Separatists’ arrival made it imperative to get away, since the locals would be unable to defend themselves from any kind of aerial bombardment.  And even three Jedi and two squads of starfighters couldn’t hold off a large Separatist cruiser, which was exactly what had come sniffing at their ion trail.

Anakin was bringing the _Crackerjack_ to pick up the gunship mid-flight, and the tender sensibilities of the locals could go hang.  Ahsoka was very glad of her Master’s pro-active strategy as the first droid fighters came into range and opened fire, only to be driven off by Obi-Wan and two squads of starfighters.  Ahsoka itched to get into her own fighter and join the fight, but Anakin shouted her down, insisting that this was a fight they couldn’t win, and that as soon as the gunship was on board, all the fighters would be joining them so that the _Crackerjack_ could go to hyper, giving them some breathing room.

It chafed, but the logic was sound.

“What do we do with these two?” Boil wanted to know, gesturing at the city guards.

“Keep an eye on them,” Ahsoka said, giving the locals a once-over. “Make sure they don’t trip and kill themselves. Or us.” The two didn’t seem like they were up to giving any trouble, going by how absolutely ashen they looked.

The gunship dropped in through the open hanger doors mid-flight, setting down behind an atmospheric forcefield.  Ahsoka and Echo were the first out, bounding up to the bridge and leaving Quick and Boil to grumble over the two locals.

 

* * *

  
Murdoch let one of the men drag him and Crabtree from the airship into…another airship. Much larger, this one had berths for several smaller craft, and an opening running down the spine of the roof. The airship shook around them; hollow, metallic reverberations accompanying a shuddering stutter of the floor beneath them.  Through the open roof, Murdoch could see beams of focused light flashing outside.

Crabtree was still holding onto his helmet.

The man – the first ‘suspect’ – pulled them over to a wall and did…something. Two seats unfolded out of the wall, and the man pushed them down into them, taking Crabtree’s vomit-filled helmet away from the befuddled-looking constable. Murdoch didn’t see what happened to it, his eyes drawn again to the open roof. A craft, looking more like some form of alien bird than an airship, slipped in through the roof and skidded sideways into a berth.  A second and third craft followed, the second landing gracefully, while the third slammed into a wall with a resounding crash, trailing smoke. Immediately a gaggle of white-armoured figures gravitated towards the first and third craft.

The first ‘suspect’ – Murdoch found the man’s name quite escaped him at the moment – grumbled under his breath but continued to strap Murdoch and Crabtree into the seats as if they were cargo or children.  

Beams of light flashed outside, and the craft shook around them. There was a sensation of moving, or perhaps rotating was a better word, and Murdoch realized that the lights he was seeing outside were no longer stars but the city lights of Toronto.

Vertigo set in, and his vision swam as his breath sped up.  The ‘suspect’ tapped his open hand against Murdoch’s cheek, saying something sharp and insistent. Murdoch looked at him, but couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The man was holding some kind of translucent bulb, offering it to Murdoch. Murdoch only stared at it, lost almost beyond his ability to put into words.  He felt cold all through, and his skin didn’t quite fit his bones. Shock. He was going into shock.

The man shoved the more pointed end of the bulb into Murdoch’s mouth and squeezed. Sugar water, or something like it.

Several strobes of light outside corresponded with some shaking and booming impact noises, and several more craft popped in through the open roof. One seemed about to enter, then diverted to avoid other craft, which were flashing those beams of light at it.

The large craft shuddered again, and Murdoch caught sight of something large, he didn’t know what, through the roof.  The craft was rolling again, the lights outside tilting away to show stars – brighter and clearer than Murdoch had ever seen before, even out in the wilderness. There was a rising whine for a second, and then the sky smeared like paint and the booming impacts stopped.


	5. Chapter 5

Anakin was bent over the central communications podium, leaning on it for support. The soothing streaks of hyperspace slid by outside the _Crackerjack_ , but it also meant that every second was taking them light-years further from Obi-Wan.

The yelling over the com from both sides had been spectacular, but in the end the situation had simply been untenable. They couldn’t wait any longer for Obi-Wan, and there were too many Vulture droids in the way for Obi-Wan and 17 to make it back aboard in time.

Hopefully the Separatists would choose to chase the _Crackerjack_ rather than one lone starfighter.  Given the navicomp virus on top of that, Obi-Wan might actually be safer than anyone on board the _Crackerjack_.  The first time the virus had run amuck, several ships had dropped out of hyper in the middle of a _sun_.  Well, at least if that happened they wouldn’t have time to know they were dead before it happened.

“Obi-Wan is okay,” Ahsoka said, as much statement as question.

“Yes,” Anakin said, pushing away from the podium and turning to face his padawan. “He is. And we _will_ get back to him.”

“Right!  Er. How?”

Anakin shuffled possible plans of action, refining or discarding them with Fives’ help. “You are I are going to pick apart the navicomp virus’ code. We’ll assign as many troops as needed to fix the starfighters and the cruiser as best we can. And three squads are going to learn _their_ language.” Anakin turned to the two ashen tag-alongs, who had just been escorted onto the bridge.

 

* * *

  
Murdoch had managed to regain some measure of composure, but had to hang onto it with grim determination.  Crabtree was a silent presence standing slightly behind Murdoch.  Bracketing both of them were two….aliens.  Murdoch had no other word to fit them.  Once he’d started to look around the hanger, it had quickly become apparent that there was only one face shared among the dozens of men present. The same dark-skinned, broad-featured face, over and over again.

For a hysterical moment, Murdoch had been reminded of the Greek story of soldiers sprung from dragon’s teeth, and he’d wondered if those, too, had shared the same face.  For surely these men could not be real, could not be natural?

Being dragged to the…bridge? the bridge of the airship, had been one shock after the other.  Even ordinary things were alien. Doors slid into and out of walls. The elevator gave almost no sense of movement, yet closed on one corridor only to open on another a few seconds later. The lights were probably electrical, but set into the walls in long, thin strips.

And now here they were, face to face with the leader.  Murdoch wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Another same-faced man, looking at him with burning blue eyes.  The words the leader said could have pronounced their doom, for all Murdoch knew. He drew himself up, ready to meet his fate head-on, with dignity befitting a police detective.

The man standing next to the leader was the second ‘suspect’ who’d shown up at the station, judging by the clothing, but this man’s eyes were blue, not brown.  Whatever the case, the robed man leaned forward to speak to the leader, and Murdoch suffered another jolt.  The voice that emerged from the robed man was that of a young woman.

Nobody seemed to find this strange or unusual. Murdoch remembered now – he had indeed heard the man speak with a both a man and a woman’s voice in the station, right at the start of this madness.  What did it mean?

The leader listened to the robed man (woman?) and nodded, saying something in return.

The robed man came over to them, placing a hand on his own collarbone and speaking with a young woman’s voice. “Ahsoka I am. Talk to you I.  Not hurt.”

Murdoch nodded stiffly. “Very well.”   It seemed they weren’t to be summarily executed after all.

 

* * *

  
Anakin had to admit that Ahsoka had a good point – she, Echo, Waxer, Boil, and Quick did know more about the new language than anyone else.  Quick, Waxer, and Boil would be assigned to the team, of course, but having Ashoka and Echo help with briefing the new troopers would save time and simplify the always-rocky start of learning a foreign language from the ground up.

In truth, Ahsoka would make faster work of it than the clones, but the navicomp virus took priority. They had anything from weeks to hours before the Seps sniffed them out, and Anakin would strongly prefer to have the virus cracked by then. Otherwise, every jump they took could potentially either kill them or take them farther from Obi-Wan.

_‘If we get back to the Republic, we can also call in reinforcements,’_ Fives reminded him. _‘We should be the only ship infected. The only problem is getting a connection established, since we’re way the hell out in the boonies.’_

Anakin took a deep breath _. ‘You’re right,’_ he acknowledged. Fives was good at pulling him back from a problem if Anakin started to get tunnel vision about it. Obi-Wan in serious trouble was a good way to cause that _. ‘We’ll see what we can do with the virus, but that’s a good alternative if we can’t get back by ourselves.’_


	6. Chapter 6

The entire city of Toronto was in an uproar.  The explosions in the night sky, coupled with three separate crash sites, one right next to an apartment building, meant that rumours and theories were running away with everyone.  The newspapers, which were reprinting all of it as if it were the word of God, were flying off the newsstands.  Streets were packed, public gathering places from city hall to back-alley taverns were standing room only, and the government had all three crash sites flooded with police and other law-enforcement officials to keep rubberneckers away.  Station House Four had already been an anthill of activity when Julia Ogden had come by to see if she could be of help.

Nobody had died in Station Four’s jurisdiction, so Julia had been politely but firmly turned away. She was sure that if Murdoch had been there, he would have allowed her to assist. That was the problem in a nutshell, though; Murdoch and Crabtree had both been absent. And not just absent, or out investigating somewhere, but missing. Perhaps abducted, if the growled rant from Inspector Brackenreid was to be trusted. 

Julia had gone by her private practice, but after an hour of her patients not showing up, she’d closed for the day and decided to go for a walk to try and take her mind off things. She’d found herself walking the shore of the King’s Rowing Club grounds. It was deserted, all the rowers and other club members caught up in the frenzy over the ‘alien attack,’ or whatever the newspapers were screaming about.

There were no boats practicing in the river today, no children playing along the lakeshore or couples wandering the woods.  Only the rustle of leaves in the wind and the calls of birds-

Actually, there wasn’t any birdsong.

Julia stopped, curiosity and the beginnings of unease pulling her from her worries.

Suddenly the hush over the woods took on an ominous quality, and the lonesome rustle of leaves raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She strained her ears for the normal sounds of life in the woods.

A distant thud, then another. Julia swerved away from the river, taking a narrow path – little more than an animal trial – that snaked into the woods.  The thuds stopped, then started again.  The sounds were unusual, and where there were unusual goings-on, Murdoch was usually in the thick of things.

Decision made, Julia grabbed her skirts and lifted them off the ground, away from low, snagging branches.  No doubt such impropriety would produce the pained, constipated look that so often graced Murdoch’s face.

The thuds were getting louder now, and Julia slowed down. The path curved, heading back towards the lake. Leafy bushes and some fallen branches and vines made up the underbrush, but she thought she could make her way through it without too much trouble.

Not to be deterred, Julia left the path, picking her way over vines and rocks, ignoring the way the thorny vines caught at her dress. When the ground trembled, slight but noticeable, Julia paused. If whatever it was was large enough to make the very ground tremble, maybe-

A man limped into view, stopping to lean against a tree.  Though the man was some distance away, it was clear he was injured. Perhaps fleeing the as-yet unknown cause of the thudding? Julia started forward again, moving with purpose.

The man was wearing some kind of white plate-mail, albeit scuffed and muddy.  Julia recognized the dark red-brown that spidered down over the hip and thigh pieces as dried blood. The man should be laid up in bed, not traipsing through the forest! Julia picked up her pace. She had to get to the man before he collapsed onto the forest floor.  Once he went down, she doubted she’d be able to drag him very far, so it was imperative to keep him upright and moving.

The noises were closer now, and Julia grudgingly admitted that what she was hearing was most likely footsteps of some kind. There was movement deeper in the forest, and a kind of smooth mechanical grinding sound, almost like the wheels of a train.

By the time she reached the injured man, the mechanical-sounding… _thing_ had come close enough for Julia to see it, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was. One thing was certain – it was huge. Taller than four men, it stood on four metal pillars or struts that tapered at the top and bottom.  There was a large disc connecting the ‘legs’, and some sort of head sat atop the disc, swiveling from side to side, apparently searching for something.  The forest impeded its movement, forcing it to scuttle sideways time and again. If it was hunting the man in white armour, the forest was likely the only reason the man was still alive.

Julia was vaguely aware that part of her was gibbering in terror, but she hadn’t come all this way to turn back now.  She reached for the man’s arm, but he took her wrist in one large hand and shook his head.

“No.” he said quietly.

“You’re injured, we have to get out of here,” Julia hissed back.

The man closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree. He held up one hand, palm flat. “Wait.”

“It’s going to find us!” Julia said, voice still low.  It was enough to alert the metal thing, however. The head snapped around, its red, vertically-slit ‘eyes’ looking directly at them.

Icy fear swept through Julia.  Weak or not, the man would _have_ to move now. Intending to grab his arm and run, she was surprised to see a fierce grin on his face.  His eyes opened, and they were impossibly blue, visibly glowing in the leaf-dappled sunlight.

“Wait,” he repeated. And then he _moved_.

The man seemed more squirrel than man as he bounced from tree to tree, circling around and evading the metal monstrosity with relative ease. There was a flash of light, and an explosion ripped through the forest, knocking Julia off her feet and sending her to the ground with a strangled cry. Shaking her head, she struggled upright, ears still ringing.  A glowing rod was being wielded by the strange man as he leaped to an impossible height, falling on the metal creature and slicing through the ‘neck,’ then leaping off the creature as it crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Julia was still gaping at the entire impossible event when the man groaned, swayed, and fell over in a dead faint.


	7. Chapter 7

Julia turned the man onto his back, fingers tugging and probing at the white armour to see if she could find a catch or tie to loosen to get it open. People didn’t pass out without cause – while there wasn’t any evidence of new bleeding, the crazy acrobatics could have aggravated any number of injuries, and internal bleeding was certainly a possibility, in which case there was very little she’d be able to do for him.

Before she could find a way to open any of the armour, a hand batted weakly at hers. The man was awake. He frowned, eyes not focusing.  This wouldn’t do at all. If he was awake, he could move. If he had a concussion, staying awake would be better than dropping into a coma.  Julia certainly didn’t want to be here if another of those metallic things came searching. “Up. You’re coming with me,” she said with as much authority as she could manage. The man didn’t fight her, doing his best to help as she got him up and slung one of his arms over her shoulder, to better support him. He even limped and staggered along as best he could, though the words he muttered weren’t English, and he tended to shake his head groggily and scowl at thin air.

His eyes were brown, now, rather than blue.  Julia added it to the list of impossible things and shelved it to deal with later.

Her dress was going to be an absolute ruin. Well, better a muddy survivor than a pretty corpse, she reflected as they almost tripped over a tree root.  She’d never get the man back to either her home or her private practice, she acknowledged. Both were too far away.  Happily, there was a much closer alternative.  She might need to break a window to get in, if it were locked, but she could afford to pay for repairs.

Fortunately, her impression that the club house itself was deserted was accurate, and she was able to get the man inside with a minimum of fuss. Laying him out on a couch, she again attempted to get the armour open.  Though he was drifting in and out of consciousness, he brought his hand around and felt along one of the seams, then pressed. Julia heard a faint click. “Oh!” Julia said, examining the now-exposed catch. “Thank-” The man had fallen unconscious again.

Well, he’d helped get the process started. Julia made quick work of the rest of the armour, now that she knew how to go about it, and had him stripped down in short order.  There were several bruises, but those seemed superficial, except for the ankle.  The armour had helped it keep its shape, almost like a splint, but once that was removed, the swelling was immediate and conspicuous.  Her careful probing determined that the ankle was at the very least broken, and most likely fractured in several places.

She sat back, aghast. There was no earthly way that this man should have been able to _walk_ , never mind bouncing around the trees like some kind of- of _squirrel_.  She didn’t even want to think about how much that must have compounded the injury.

There wasn’t much she could do for it at the moment other than wrapping it, which she did with some scavenged strips from the linen closet.

The other major injury was the wound on the abdomen, along the side and towards the back. It looked to be a few days healed, but that made no sense, since she rather doubted the man had been out there for several days simply bleeding away. He also hadn’t had a chance to clean up, if the way the armour and black suit had stuck to the wound were any indication.

If this were a normal situation, Julia would be looking at a corpse, not a patient.  But this wasn’t a normal situation.  The man had been mostly unconscious though all of this, but she’d seen his eyes a few times. Mostly they were brown. Once, they’d been blue. Julia fought down a shiver.

No. She was not going to descend into superstitious fear just because her patient was a bit odd. He was a living, breathing being, and her Hippocratic Oath demanded that she try to help.

Right, then. The next step was obviously to get him somewhere she could take better care of him. Also somewhere private, because other minds might not be as open as hers.

* * *

  
17 drifted in and out of consciousness. Obi-Wan was a strong presence in the back of his mind, but nonresponsive. Asleep or in a healing trance, 17 thought muzzily.

Movement. Up. He was moving forward. Hobbling. A vague impression of two large animals and some kind of box. Being jostled around. Noise. Darkness.

17 slept.

* * *

  
Being back at her own house was a relief, and the man seemed not too much the worse for wear. Bouncing around in a carriage couldn’t have been comfortable, Julia thought a bit guiltily.

She got him out of the clothes she’d ‘borrowed’ from the club house and unwrapped his injuries to check on them.

Unwrapping the ankle got a pained grunt from him, and Julia looked up into lucid blue eyes.  She sat up quickly. “Ah, hello! You’re awake.”

The man frowned and said something incomprehensible, maybe a question of some type.

He’d spoken English before, but thinking back on it, he hadn’t exactly been loquacious. “Oh, where are my manners. I’m Dr. Julia Ogden. I’m- I help people. I bandaged your ankle? Ah…”

The man stared at her. “Help. You are… one-who-helps?”

“Yes, a doctor. I’m a doctor.” She supposed a female doctor wasn’t the strangest thing the man had seen recently, at least.

“Doctor,” the man repeated, seeming to roll the word around. “Doctor, where is my… haa… _akaitien?”_

“I’m sorry, akah…what?”

The man frowned in thought, clearly trying to scrounge together vocabulary. “ _Akaitien,_ ” he repeated, curling his hand as if he were holding a rod or a pipe, and making slow motions as if he were swiping or cutting- oh! 

“Your sword!”

“Sword,” the man agreed.

“…Ohhh,” Julia’s expression fell as she realized that the man’s glowing sword was, in all likelihood, still lying on the forest floor next to the giant metal thing. “Drat.”

* * *

  
Obi-Wan got the gist of that.  He slumped back onto the bed. “Anakin’s never going to let me live this down,” he groaned, and passed out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for misgendering of a character. Not maliciously, but it’s present.

“I’ve been thinking,” Crabtree said, poking at the food on his tray, “what if Mr. Ahsoka _is_ a woman? I mean, he – she? – sounds like a woman, and nobody seems surprised by it.  What if – bear with me here, but what if God created them in His image, but never created a woman for them? Or maybe God created a Martian woman – not that they’re actually Martians. Probably. Anyway, what if God created a woman for them, but _also in His image?_ I mean, what if their men and women all look exactly alike? Maybe Mr. Ahsoka – or Miss Ahsoka – isn’t the only woman on board, and we just don’t know it?  What if ‘in His image’ is more literal than we think? What if they only _look_ human like us, but are actually completely different on the inside – maybe they don’t eat the same things we do, or they have two livers, or maybe they don’t have any liver at all?

“Sir? Are you all right?”

“Hmm?” Murdoch looked up, pulled from his thoughts.

Crabtree quirked his usual small grin. “Well, usually you comment on my ideas.” Even if it was only to shut Crabtree up.

“Ah. I’m sorry, just…thinking.”

“About our hosts?”

Murdoch gave a strained smile and a quick nod. “They don’t seem to be hostile, but…I’m not sure we should be teaching them English.”  Mr. Ahsoka’s offer to ‘talk,’ the previous day, had been something of a misnomer.

From what Murdoch could gather, twelve of the same-faced men had been assigned to learn English, and they had gone about it with frightening efficiency.

Mr. Ahsoka had given the men some instruction in the basics of English, utilizing a screen that glowed and was capable of displaying some form of alphabet.  The first suspect, Mr. Kanash, could indeed read and write in his own language. As could all the same-faced men.

The screen could also display images and even moving images, smoother than any kinetoscope Murdoch had ever seen. There was even sound! Technological marvels aside, the men themselves were stranger by far.  They had only to hear a word repeated a few times, and it seemed fixed in their memory. Grammatical structure came a bit slower, but again, once it was mastered, it stuck. By the end of the…class, for lack of a better word, even the new students had been speaking in short but understandable sentences.

George frowned. “You think they might be planning an invasion? But Mr. Ahsoka said they didn’t want to hurt us.”

“They could be lying, to gain our cooperation. And why else come all the way to Earth? It must be quite an investment of time and resources to travel so far.”

“Mmm I don’t know, sir. They didn’t seem to be attacking so much as running away.”

“They were operating covertly, George. If they were aboveboard, why the subterfuge? Why not visit openly?”

“Well, if it _was_ their ship that everyone saw on Monday, I don’t think they intended to visit, either. Being on fire can’t be part of how their ship works normally.”

Murdoch sighed, pursing his lips together. “You may be right, George.  And while I’m not happy about the guard they posted outside our quarters, our door is not locked-“

“They even explained how to open it.” Crabtree hid a grin by taking a bite of the unappetizing ‘breakfast,’ as Murdoch gave him an admonishing look.

“-and the guard is most likely as much for our protection as the other way around.” Murdoch wasn’t happy about that, but he acknowledged that if left to their own devices, he and Crabtree would as likely break the vessel as anything useful.

Thinking about that was better than thinking about the stars that hung outside the windows.  There were one or two constellations that were still recognizable – the stars composing them were far enough away that their arrangement remained the same. Some constellations were completely new. That was better than the ones that were stretched, warped versions of constellations he did know.

Murdoch’s worst idea though – even worse than stargazing –  had been looking down out of one of those windows, instead of up.  There had been nothing. No horizon-line, no ground, no planet, nothing below the craft except empty space, star-strewn and empty enough to swallow the craft a million times over.  They were in a very small metallic craft in the middle of absolutely _nothing_.  

Crabtree had been busy inspecting their little bathroom when this had happened, fortunately, because Murdoch had had to sit down rather abruptly, head between his knees to call back some semblance of calm.

“George, what do you say we go take a walk?” Murdoch suggested to distract himself.  They were currently in what served as a communal dining hall, although only two of the same-faced men were there. Given that the same-faced men had still been wide awake last night, when both Murdoch and Crabtree had been ready to sleep where they sat, there must be some kind of time difference, and it was likely still very early in their ‘morning’, though that metric was of course entirely arbitrary without a sun to set time by.

“Fine by me, sir,” Crabtree agreed, always up for investigating new things.

* * *

  
“But Quick-“

“No, Commander Tano. I am _not_ going to authorize more stims for General Skywalker. He’s a Jedi – you _both_ are. If he can’t keep himself and Host Fives awake, then both of them need sleep more than they need to be doing anything else. And so do you and Host Echo.”

“Echo, stop agreeing with him,” Tano muttered, quiet and exasperated as she scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Quick, we are _this close_ to figuring out the virus. If- ”

“ _No_ , Commander. You are all four of you exhausted. The men appreciate everything you’ve been doing, but if you continue in this state, you’re too likely to make an error in your work that’d kill us anyway. If the Seps find us we’ll deal with it, but I am prescribing _sleep_.”

“Quick-“

“Sir, when it comes to the health of the crew, I outrank everyone. _Sleep._ ”

It seemed for a moment that Commander Tano would continue to be obstinate, but then her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Skyguy’s not going to be happy about this.”

Quick crossed his arms. “Ask me if I care.”

“Slavedriver,” Tano glared at him half-heartedly. Quick raised his eyebrows at her, as if to ask what she was still doing there.

“Fine, fine,” she said, turning and wobbling out of the medbay, exhaustion coming off her in waves, now. _Jedi._

* * *

  
Murdoch could see the exhaustion riding Mr. Ahsoka’s shoulders as the same-faced man stalked out of the room, passing him, Crabtree, and their guard.

Mr. Kanash stood in the room, arms crossed and still scowling, at least until he saw Murdoch’s and the others in the hallway.  Relaxing out of his confrontational demeanor, the man shook his head. “Detective Murdoch. Hello.”  He nodded at the other two. “Crabtree. Nexu.”

“Good morning,” Murdoch replied, entering the room. There were something like slabs or gurneys arranged along the walls, and all manner of alien devices tucked into nooks and crannies beside them. There were no blankets, but raised areas at one end gave the impression of pillows, and suddenly the room made sense. Murdoch was standing in a hospital room.  “Is everything all right? We heard loud voices…”

Mr. Kanash snorted. “All is good. _Mi’ehaia_ Tano asking– was asking? for some….ah, to be not-sleep?”

“Awake.”

Mr. Kanash nodded, moving to fiddle with some of the equipment. “ _Mi’ehaia_ Tano was asking for some drink for awake.”

“And you told him no,” Murdoch surmised.

“Yes.  Sleep they need. Not drink for awake.”

A doctor. Kanash was a _doctor._ Realization washed over Murdoch. _That_ was why Mr- _Dr._ Kanash had needed to be dragged off a dying woman. He’d been trying to _save_ her, not murder her.

Several niggling oddities about that situations had prevented Murdoch from assuming that Dr. Kanash was as guilty as he seemed – if he’d still been killing her, how would the ‘brother’ have made off with the knife?  Dr. Kanash hadn’t possessed the demeanor of someone who’d killed in a fit of rage.  Nor had there been any tell-tale signs of either inebriation or of opium or other drug.

Murdoch hadn’t thought to wonder if the man was a healer until just this moment though, and he berated himself for his limited imagination.

It felt like waking up. He was shaking off the stupor that, he now saw, had lain over him ever since he’d thrown himself into the airship after Dr. Kanash and Mr. Ahsoka. So many impossible things had happened that he’d struggled to find something he could use as a cornerstone.  It seemed fitting that his cornerstone should be a doctor.

“Mr. Kanash,” Crabtree piped up. “We were wondering. Is Mr. Ahsoka a woman?”

Dr. Kanash frowned, no doubt reviewing the words he knew in English. “What is a ‘woman?’"


	9. Chapter 9

Julia pulled last night’s left-over chicken from the ice-chest.  After her guest had woken up again, he’d been brown-eyed and very, very hungry.  The cook hadn’t come in today – in fact only the maid had come in that morning, but Julia had let her go home again, considering what a crazy day it had been shaping up to be.  Anyway, that meant that Julia had to make do with what was in the ice-chest.  This turned out to be fortuitous, because the ice hadn’t been delivered either, so the ice-chest was noticeably less cool than it should have been.

Julia had managed to heat up the leftover vegetable soup without burning it, and had taken that to her guest. He’d made short work of it.  Julia wasn’t about to spend half an hour heating up the chicken and potatoes, so he’d just have to make do with it cold.

Her guest was sitting up in bed when she got back, and looked with interest at the food she carried. “I hope you like cold chicken,” she grinned.

“It’s food. I can eat a much of food,” he said, and his stomach grumbled.

“’A lot of food,’” Julia corrected him, and he repeated it dutifully.  She’d noticed that his voice changed when his eyes did. She might have put it down to faulty memory under other circumstances, but today she would have taken flying pigs with a smile and a nod.  Her more-than-human guest having two different voices hardly merited more than a footnote.

She set the chicken down on low table she’d pulled to the side of the bed.  Her guest inspected it quickly but intently, as if- oh! He might never have seen a chicken before.  

“Here, you tear it like so,” she said, detaching a drumstick.  That made her realize that she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. The man gave a grunt and a nod of thanks and started in on the thigh, while Julia bit into the drumstick.

They ate in companionable silence for a while.

“You know, it occurs to me I’ve been very rude,” Julia said, amused.

“Mn?”

“I’ve not asked your name.”

The man shrugged. He finished chewing, and swallowed.  “We have been…doing many things today.”

“Busy, you mean?” Julia nodded. “Yes, we have been busy. But in any case, my name is Julia Ogden.”

The man hesitated, seeming to think for a moment. He put his hand on his sternum. “I am Ta’raysh E’tad.” He moved his hand higher, to the hollow of his collarbone. “And Kenobi.”

“I’m sorry? I don’t understand.” It was probably some form of alien custom, Julia theorized, and hoped that she could get Mr. Eytad to expand on it.

He hesitated again, then placed his hand on his sternum. “I am Ta’raysh E’tad.” He closed his eyes and moved his hand to his collarbone. He opened blue eyes. “And I am Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he said in his other voice.

A frission of wonder and curiosity went through Julia. “Dual personalities. Are you talking about dual personalities?”

“Dual personalities?” Eytad- no, still Kenobi, asked.

“I’ve only ever seen one case, but it’s a type of personality disorder, incredibly rare, that happens when someone suffers a traumatic experience as a child, and-“ Though trying to keep up, Kenobi’s expression was polite but bewildered. “Forgive me,” she made herself slow down and take a mental step back. “When a young child,” she held her hand at the height of a three- or four-year-old, “a young human, sees something very very bad, they are so hurt by it, in their mind,” she touched her fingers to her forehead, “that they split their mind to protect themselves. One becomes two. One the same child, still, and the second angrier, more protective, that is there to shield the first.”

Kenobi’s expression cleared a bit. “Aah. I think I know of this. It is not that, with I and Ta’raysh E’tad. It is not a hurt, a…’traumatic experience.’ It is…” he searched for the words, but in the end only shrugged. “It is good.”

“I see.” Julia found herself unable to stop smiling. The sheer scope of new mental and possibly biological areas of study this could up was breathtaking. It felt like she was standing on a shore seeing the ocean for the first time and wanting to know _everything_.

“What is going on here?”

Julia turned to see her husband, Darcy Garland, standing in the doorway.

* * *

  
Darcy had had a very long day. The hospital had been overwhelmed with all manner of injuries. Most hadn’t been severe, but the near-panic gripping Toronto had bubbled over into fistfights, self-inflicted wounds, and accidents enough to fill the wards at the hospital three times over.  It was already dark outside, hours later than Darcy typically returned home.

To find his wife sitting at the bedside of a naked, dark-skinned man and speaking animatedly with him, left Darcy feeling wrong-footed.  He had to take a firm hold on himself, lest his exhaustion snap over into anger – he knew himself to have a temper when provoked, and shooting his mouth off without thinking had often gotten him into trouble as a child.

“Darcy!” Julia startled upright, setting the chicken bone down. “Hello, we were just…” she glanced at the man.

“I assume there is a rational explanation for why you are in the same room as a naked man.”

“He was injured, I couldn’t just leave him,” Julia said, slightly flustered.

Darcy told himself sternly that there was no need to be jealous. Though he did not feel himself worthy of Julia’s affections, she had consented to marry him. That had to count for something.  “So instead of bringing him to the hospital, you brought him to our home?”

“The city was in an uproar – it still is!” Julia stood and approached him, lowering her voice.  “And even if the hospital would have taken someone of his appearance – and we both know it would not have – what care could he have hoped for? I know what hospitals are like in times of crisis. He would have been left in a corner, with a dirty bandage, if he were lucky.”

“Julia,” sometimes Darcy despaired for his wife’s lack of social awareness, “if this gets out, it won’t matter what the reality was. People will _talk_.”

Julia’s chin came up. “I will not leave someone to die on the street because our ever-so-proper neighbours _might_ talk.”

Darcy knew Julia held the moral high ground, and he couldn’t argue further without seeming either small-minded or cruel, but that didn’t stop his points being true. If tongues set to wagging, they stood to lose their respectable name – already tarnished by his having a working wife – which would affect what opportunities were and were not made available to him, and to them both.  He knew how little Julia cared about that, but that was why she’d been working as a police pathologist instead of a real doctor for the past several years.

Perhaps he could at least minimize the damage. “He can stay tonight, but tomorrow he has to leave. We can find him help elsewhere.”

“We’re not turning him out to the street, he has nowhere to go.” Julia said indignantly.

“He’s not a stray dog. I’m sure he has a home somewhere.”

“Not anywhere he can get back to!”

Darcy frowned. “What?”

Julia’s gaze skittered off to the side. “Well, I mean. It’s just that his home must be very far away, considering-  He’s not-  Oh drat it.”

“Julia?”

She started to speak, paused, then seemed to find her thought. “Come, look at this.” Taking his hand, she tugged him over to the naked, dark-skinned man, who was watching with polite interest.

“Mr. Kenobi. I realize this is very rude. But could I show my husband your wound?”

There was barely a blink, and the man’s eyes turned from pale blue to a solid brown. Darcy twitched. Some kind of trick, or illusion?

“You need to?” the man asked, not nearly as polite now as he’d seemed.

“It would help a lot.”

Good God, they were kindred spirits in rudeness.

“Yes.” The man rolled his eyes and lifted his arms, completely uncaring that Julia was about to remove the only bandage keeping his upper modesty intact.  Darcy ascribed some of the blame for his wife’s blasé attitude towards seeing men with their nipples bared to her being a doctor, but suspected that some of it was purely Julia being Julia.

She unwrapped the bandage, revealing a large area of mangled skin along one side and around to the man’s back. Darcy found himself circling to one side to get the scope of it. “Good God, this must have been a serious wound.”

“It happened this morning,” Julia said.

Darcy glanced away from the raw-looking but healing wound. “This injury has been healing for at least a week.

“I know it sounds impossible, but it’s true.” Julia took a deep breath, and proceeded to tell Darcy one of the wildest stories he’d ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, men going topless was considered scandalous in the Victorian era (as I understand it. If I am wrong please let me know.)


	10. Chapter 10

“There are no such things as walking metal giants. There are also no such thing as aliens,” Darcy said flatly.  It was not a sentence he’d ever thought to find himself saying in all seriousness. It shouldn’t _need_ to be said, given that it was perfectly self-evident.

“Yesterday I would have agreed.” Julia’s passionate nature filled her words, and though neither of them had raised their voices, it was very much an argument.  “But I _saw_ it with my own two eyes.”

“The papers have been publishing a lot of wild speculation.  You have a very vivid mind.  Maybe you think you saw something moving in the bushes down by the lake-“

“Hysteria?!” Julia squawked indignantly. “Are you actually accusing me of-  You think I’m some feeble-minded-“

“It wouldn’t be the first case I’ve seen today!” Darcy snarled.  He could tell from the way Julia reared back, real anger lighting in her eyes, that he’d miss-stepped.  God, all he’d wanted to do was come home and fall into bed, how had it gone so horribly astray?  He wasn’t going to back down though, because this was _crazy_ , and he was too tired to put up with it.

“Excuse me,” the soft voice fell perfectly into the pause of silence before the storm. “Doctor Ogden?”

“What?” Julia snapped, her temper still high as she rounded on the naked man in the bed.

The man said nothing for a long moment, looking at them calmly.  The anger started to ebb out of the room.

“You need…a thing to show, to your… to Mr. Darcy?“

“Proof, you mean?” Julia hazarded. “Yes, that…that would help. But you’re still hurt, I’m not letting you go jumping off roofs or anything.” Belatedly, she added. “Oh, and Darcy is my husband. He’s a doctor too.”

The man smiled, real amusement curling the corners of his mouth. “Something with less jumping, yes. Do you have the… the white cover for my arm?”

“Your vambrace. Yes, I have it. Wait here and I’ll bring it,” she said sternly, as if the man might jump up and run off.

“Thank you,” the man said. His demeanour was much more polite now than earlier, and his eyes were blue again. How did he _do_ that?

Thankfully there wasn’t enough time to try to make awkward conversation before Julia returned, a white vambrace held in both hand. It didn’t look metallic, but maybe it had simply been painted over? It honestly reminded Darcy more of a stage prop than anything real. He bit back a sneering question with great effort. He’d let this farce play out, and when nothing came of it, maybe Julia would be willing to listen to sense.

The man fitted the white vambrace to his arm, and pressed something on it. There was a beep. “Oh!” Julia said, leaning forward in her seat. Darcy stepped closer to get a better look, and found that there was a small light on the vambrace.

“How is that possible?” he asked with a frown. “There aren’t any wires.”

“Doctor Ogden, what do you call your, ah, the big round, where everyone lives?” the man asked, ignoring Darcy.

“The big…round?” Julia frowned.

“The… all of this.” The man waved his hand in the air, then gestured to the ground.

“The planet!” Julia said, sounding as excited as a girl with her first pony. Darcy wanted to scoff again, but the small, impossible green light still glowed on the man’s vambrace. “’Earth,’ Mr. Kenobi. We call our world ‘Earth.’”

“Earth.” Mr. Kenobi repeated with a nod.  Then he said something, but not in English. His native tongue, most likely.  Rapid and smooth, Mr. Kenobi’s speech was a startling reminder that though the man was halting and awkward in English, that didn’t mean he was either slow or stupid.

A blue ghost appeared in the air, and Darcy let out a startled yelp, stumbling back and almost going on his ass. Even Julia jumped up, eyes wide.

“Ah, I am sorry.” Kenobi raised his other hand. “It is not bad, it will not hurt. Please, not afraid.”

Darcy swallowed hard, looking at the floating blue…thing.

“Is that… is that Earth?” Julia cautiously settled back in her seat and reached out a hand, but stopped short of touching the thing.

Darcy made himself step closer again, finding himself without words. It had to be some kind of trick, right? He reached out for the back of Julia’s chair, but misjudged, and he found himself holding onto her shoulder, instead.  He looked down at her as she looked up at him, and her look softened. “Darcy, you look white as a sheet.”

“With good cause, I should think,” he found himself saying.

Julia put a hand over his. “You’re shaking- when was the last time you ate?”

“I think we have slightly more important things to discuss right now.” He choked back a laugh.

“Your husband is good?” Kenobi asked, sounding sincerely worried.

“He just needs to sit down,” Julia said, pulling Darcy down into her chair as she got up.

“Julia, I’m fine.”

“Sit.” She ripped a thigh off the chicken and stuck it in his hand. “Eat.”

“Julia, this is uncivilized,” he protested weakly, not wanting to appear a barbarian in front of a witness, even if that witness was…whatever Kenobi was.

“Eat,” she insisted as she wiped her greasy hand on her dress and dragged another chair closer.

Darcy considered trying to reprimand Julia for all of two seconds. He sighed and bit into the cold chicken.

“All right,” Julia said, looking at the ghostly blue orb. “How does this work? What _is_ it?”

Kenobi pointed to a painting on the wall – a landscape. “It is like that.”

“A painting?”

“A painting,” Kenobi nodded, “made with light.”

“How wonderful.”

“It will not hurt,” Kenobi said, amusement in his voice. “You can…” he waved his hand through the image, letting the light play over his fingers.

Julia moved her fingers through the light as well, positively gleeful. “Darcy, Darcy look, here’s Africa. That means…there! North America!” Julia pointed as the ghostly ball turned slowly on its axis.

“Would you… do you want to see where I am from? Where my home is?”

“Oh, yes please!” Julia lit up in anticipation.

Kenobi nodded, and rattled off another long sentence.  A label popped up, connected to Earth and displaying some form of alien lettering. Then Earth contracted down to a pinpoint, although the label stayed large enough to read, if one could read the language. Darcy found himself looking at a scattering of diamond pinpricks. Stars. He swallowed his mouthful of chicken.

Kenobi spoke again, and this time it was a combination of the image enlarging and the displayed scattering of stars shrinking again.  Darcy looked at the ghostly blue illusion of the galaxy for several seconds before he realized  what, exactly, he was looking at.  Kenobi was still talking, and another label popped into being, this time connected to a point much closer to the center of the galactic swirl.

“Korusahnt” Kenobi said. “Home.”


End file.
